Working together in adult community mental health services: Exploring inter-professional role relations

This is the second of two papers in this issue of JMH that draws upon an initiative by the Centre for Mental Health Services Development (CMHSD) to examine problems of inter-professional working in adult community mental health services. These problems were examined within a series of facilitated group meetings that focused on the community mental health team (CMHT), so establishing an inter-disciplinary dialogue between mental health professionals. This paper reports professionals' perceptions of their own and other mental health disciplines which help to explain why professionals working within multi-professional teams often experience problems in establishing and sustaining inter-professional collaboration. These problems were related mainly to differences in culture between professional groups and to the different values held by group members. These differences originate in professional training and are maintained subsequently by socialisation. The procedure through which inter-professional perceptions were explored emerged as a potentially valuable approach to identifying inter-professional conflict and promoting understanding of professional roles.